In reading this, it sounds like there is more to the story than we are hearing.
My first thought upon reading this is that some universities provide benefits to professors like laptops and the like out of their budget. However you can't get a replacement if your Laptop is still working and does the job it's supposed to. If the guy wanted a new Laptop and didn't want to pay for it, his being stolen would be an excuse for not having it and getting the University to cover a replacement (which will be a newer model).
I'm guessing the guy didn't want to lose all of his work, and the "thief sends me a USB stick" was a way of him justifying the fact that he backed up his system when he wasn't prone to doing such a thing right before the theft.
It sounds to me like we have his word about the bag and other stuff and little else.
So I'm guessing the guy figured reporting his cards stolen and getting replacements sent was a small price to pay for getting a new Laptop. Someone questioned how he managed to have all of his data to put on the new laptop, and why he for example still a lot of things that were in his allgedly stolen bag that people knew he was carrying around. Hence this story.
Now it's impossible to prove one way or another, but if I was security investigating such an unlikely story (or at least filing the reports) after receiving the report, such would be my thoughts.
There ARE other possibilities of course, but that's what occurs to me as the most likely scenario.
It's also noteworthy that the guy might also have given his Laptop away if the university has those kind of policies. Poor student needs a laptop for class or whatever, professor gives his away after removing data, reports it stolen with security, and then gets a new one from the school.
If the school is being cheap they might be paying attention more when such things are typically rubber stamped, which is why we have such an unlikely sequence of events.
